Marcus the Mysterious!
A greater peril than has ever gone
before confronts Captain Justice. With the
whole world in total and utter Darkness, he is menaced by a mysterious enemy
who has planned to establish himself as Emperor of the
Earth!
Complete—by
Murray Roberts Honestly it does say 'Complete'!drf
From
The Modern Boy, May 26, 1934, No.
329, Vol. 13. Contributed by Keith Hoyt; digitized by Doug
Frizzle, Mar. 2013.
Big Trouble Brewing!
“DARKNESS," said Captain
Justice, speaking from a gloom as thick and clinging as black treacle, “is a stimulant
to the imagination. Actually we can see
nothing, but our thoughts paint pictures in our mind like a brush on canvas. At
the moment
I have a very clear impression of
Professor Flaznagel—perched on top of a gigantic tower, peering along the beam of an invisible light-ray and preparing to
launch some sort of a craft to come to our assistance!”
“Bedad, I hope yo’re right!”
said Dr. O’Mally, Captain Justice’s second-in-command,
fervently “ ‘Tis tired I am of squatting here like a mummy in a sealed tomb?”
Midge sniffed.
“Blinkin’ fine mummy you'd make!”
he muttered. “Like a stuffed elephant in bandages! You’d need a tomb as big as a swimming-bath, and then they’d
have a job tucking your feet in!
“At the
moment,” went on the captain’s slow drawl, “I have a very clear
impression of a thumping great dish of ham and eggs, with hot coffee, buttered
toast, and lots of marmalade. My hat, I’m as hungry as a python! If the professor doesn’t soon breeze along, I'm going down
can rustle some grub!”
"Lay off, for the love o' Pete!" implored Len Connor. "I
don't say I couldn’t do with a spot of food myself, but there
wouldn't be much satisfaction in eating in the
dark. Any sign of the professor, captain?”
“Not yet,” answered Justice quickly.
“Give the old fellow a chance. He’ll
get here as quickly as he can,
and we'll know all about it when he arrives. He must be anxious to know if we
received his message or not. He can’t be any too certain that we’re still alive,
as we haven't been able to answer his signals.”
“Sure enough.” agreed Len
Connor moodily. “I only wish he'd switch on that beacon again. This darkness
gives me the hump! It’s like being
buried alive!”
“Faith. ‘tis better than
being dead and buried!” said O’Mally resignedly. “And we’re no worse off than
millions of other folks who are
wandering about in this pestiferous fog without a glimmer of light of any
kind!"
His voice sounded flat and
muffled in the terrible blackness
that enveloped Justice and his companions.
The events of the past three days
seemed like a nightmare to the
little band of adventurers. They had been cruising in the
South Atlantic, aboard Justice's yacht, the
Electra, with a crew of four, when the
whole world had been suddenly plunged in darkness by a mysterious cloud of dense
black gases, millions of miles in extent that had arrived from the
outer realms of Space, completely
obscuring sun, moon, and stars, and blotting out every vestige of light.
It
was a darkness that nothing
could disperse. It covered every part of the
Earth's surface, and saturated the
atmosphere to a height of over a mile, forming an impenetrable barrier to the light and heat of the
sun.
It was the
most extraordinary and terrifying phenomenon
known in the history of mankind. All
ordinary forms of illumination were rendered useless. There was no light. The
world groped in utter darkness. All transport travel, and industry was at a
standstill.
A wave of panic, born of blind
helplessness, swept from continent
to continent.
Nations were plunged in frenzied fear. Civilisation tottered. Only the big radio stations continued working, jamming the ether
with ghastly tales of rioting and confusion, and urgent appeals for assistance
that none could give. Scientists were baffled. The Black Menace—as the world darkness was called—was something utterly beyond their
ken.
One man alone had been
prepared for this grim, sinister visitation. Six months previously, Professor
Flaznagel, the famous scientist and inventor,
had foretold it, and had advised his fellow scientists to devise some means of fighting the
plague of blackness. But his warning was ignored.
All attempts to get in touch
with the
eccentric old fellow since that date had failed. Flaznagel had made one of his
periodical disappearances, retiring to some
secret workshop, where, undisturbed, he could carry on with his weird and
wonderful inventions and experiments.
AND now the black disaster
had come.
From the
bridge of their magnificent,
all-electric yacht, Justice and his fellow voyagers—Len Connor, Midge, and Dr.
O'Mally—had witnessed the
terrifying spectacle of a swooping black cloud that had spread across the heavens,
extinguishing the
light of the
sun and leaving them
afloat in a world of darkness.
By locking themselves in the
airtight metal turret that housed the
yacht's controls, they had, for a
time, been able to keep the evil
black fog at bay, and prevent it from
blotting out their precious lights.
Meanwhile, a radio message from
the
professor gave assurance that they
would soon join him at his new headquarters.
But even Professor Flaznagel
had not been prepared for a gigantic tidal-wave, caused by the prolonged
obscuration of the
moon, that had careered devastatingly across the South Atlantic, leaving the yacht beached
high and dry on a desolate island, with her back broken, her hull breached and
battered, and her powerful motors hopelessly wrecked. And the engineer and
two stewards who had been below when the yacht piled up had perished.
The radio failed, the lights went out, and for the
first time Justice and his friends, imprisoned in the
metal turret with Ham Chow, their
Chinese cook, experienced all the
horrors of utter darkness.
But their confidence in Professor Flaznagel
was not misplaced. Far away in the
distance a brilliant orange beam suddenly slashed through the surrounding
blackness, circling the
horizon till it picked out the
tiny island where the
yacht lay wrecked.
"Have located you,"
was the
encouraging message that the
professor had flashed in morse to his stranded friends. "Am coming to your
assistance. Be on your guard. You are probably in danger."
Then the
light had vanished, leaving Justice to speculate on the
mystery of the professor's
whereabouts, the queerness of the orange beam, and the
vagueness of his warning of lurking danger. They could only connect the latter caution
with a strange, ghostly vessel that had crept up under cover of darkness,
betraying her presence by a rattle of cable as she had dropped anchor off the island.
The period of waiting for the promised arrival of the professor was
an anxious one. Every moment
seemed like an hour to the
little party in the
black turret. They had had no food for many hours—as Midge constantly reminded them—and the
dangers of venturing into the dark
bowels of the wrecked yacht in
search of a meal were too great to be lightly undertaken, though the red-haired youngster was willing to risk it.
"Bedad, ye'll stay where
ye are!" said O'Mally
severely. " ‘Tis as dark below as the
inside of a black shark. Ye'd only be losing your way of tumbling downstairs
and breaking your greedy neck. Sit still, ye spalpeen, and don't argue. Sure,
and the professor'll soon be
along."
"I'd like to know how the dickens he's going to get here, and where he's coming from!"
sniffed Midge, who had already succeeded in locating the
sliding-door to an emergency hatch that, in addition to an electric lift, led
to the lower regions, where the cook's galley and larder were situated.
"According to the
captain, that orange light we saw was anything up to twenty miles away.
"Crumbs, I'm hungry
enough to eat a boiled bedpost!" he muttered under his breath. "I'll
bet I could find my way down to the
blinkin' larder, grab an armful of grub, and be back again before anyone knew
I'd gone."
Justice's eyes ached from the constant strain
of attempting to penetrate the
gulf of blackness that yawned before him. He had never left his post at the open observation window in the side of turret, facing in the
direction where Len Connor had heard the
rattle of a running cable and a sullen splash as some
strange vessel had dropped her anchor off the
bleak island. Since then
no other
sound had reached his ears, save the
moan of the
sea and the
grinding of wrenched plates as the
wrecked yacht settled lower on the
rocks.
A cold breeze slapped his
tanned cheeks and lifted the
hair on his out-thrust head. The luminous dial of his wrist-watch told him that
it was nine o'clock in the
morning. The tropical sun should have been glaring brazenly from a clear blue
sky. Actually it was shining somewhere
overhead, but the
sinister fog from
outer Space intervened like a black canopy, cutting off all light and heat.
HOW long would the all-pervading
gloom
endure? wondered Justice uneasily. In time the
earth would cool, all vegetation would die, and the
wide seas would freeze as the ice spread
downwards from the Poles. Man—if man survived—would have to adapt
himself to a state of eternal darkness.
All the great cities of the world would
gradually crumble in ruins; boats rusting in empty harbours; locomotives standing
derelict where they
had last stopped; still, silent factories: aeroplanes rotting in their hangars—a
dead, dark world, peopled with crawling, blindly groping shadows of men.
Justice bit his lip. But
perhaps he was looking too far ahead!
The danger so vaguely hinted
at by Professor Flaznagel in his last message, was probably something quite
apart from
this weird solar phenomenon.
Remotely, dimly, yet with persisting conviction, he found himself connecting it
with the strange, stealthy ship that
was now lying at anchor within a few hundred yards of the
mist-shrouded island.
A ghost-ship! These were the words with which Dr. O'Mally had described the unknown vessel
on a previous occasion when they
had seen her glowing, spectral shape limned against the darkness. But there was nothing ghostlike about the cable and anchor that now held the craft at its moorings. Nor was it to be supposed
that Professor Flaznagel was aboard her. He would not have failed to give some indication of his arrival. Yet—
“Confound it, I'm letting my
imagination run away with me!"
muttered the captain.
"It's probably some unfortunate
vessel, like the Electra, that got
badly battered by the tidal wave and
has dropped her anchor to see what damage she has suffered. May have sprung a
leak or lost one of her screws."
"I'll bet you're wrong there,
captain," whispered Len Connor, who had overheard the softly spoken words, "There's
something
queer about that ship. How is it that she carries lights enabling her to see
her way in this confounded darkness? And why come
slinking along here immediately after the
professor flashed us that message? I've got a hunch she's here for a purpose,
and we shall hear all about it when old Flaznagel arrives on the scene."
"Then the sooner he poles
along the
better!" growled Justice, as he dropped a hand to the
automatic in his pocket. "This
business has got me guessing, Connor. The professor always was a mysterious old
bird, but I'm hanged if I can get a line on his latest stunt. He knew this
black plague was coming
six months before it was due. He warned us what to expect just before he
disappeared, and that's the
last we heard of him till the
other
day. What's he been doing in the
meanwhile?"
Len Connor shrugged his
shoulders in the
darkness.
"Not wasting his time,
I'll wager," he said confidently. "If he hasn't got a thumping big
surprise in store for us I'll eat my hat. The man who can build a giant rocket
to carry us to another planet and
back again, as the professor did,
isn't going to allow this black fog to baffle him. Somewhere
over there where we saw that orange beam flashing, is the secret hangout where Flaznagel has been hiding
himself all these months."
“He couldn't have picked a
more desolate spot," mused the
captain, "There's not a ship passes within hundreds of miles of here once
in a blue moon. That light we saw was mighty high up, Connor—thousands of feet
above sea level."
"Almost high enough to
be above this belt of darkness," suggested the lad meaningly. "Putting two
and two together, it's my opinion the professor's annexed one of these islands and built himself a thundering great
tower, where he's perched like a crafty old eagle, sitting pretty till the clouds roll by and the
sun shines again."
"The idea of a gigantic
tower occurred to me two days ago," said Justice quietly. "Flaznagel
actually mentioned the word ‘tower'—‘Titanic
Tower,' he said—when he told us he was above
the zone of darkness,
where the sun still shone and the skies were clear."
Len Connor drew a deep breath
as he tried to visualize a huge metal structure, ten times the height of the
Eiffel Tower,
rearing up from this lonely waste of
waters in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was a stupendous undertaking for any man to lay his mind to, but nothing was
impossible to Professor Flaznagel.
"As for that strange
ship lying out there,"
said Justice, suddenly changing the
subject, "I'm hanged if I know what to think. It's queer to find another craft in these waters, and
still queerer that she should have anchored herself off this particular
island."
"Well, if there's any trouble
brewing, we're safe enough in here." jerked Len Connor grimly. “This
turret’s a tough nut. If anyone tries to break in here they're
going to need a siege-gun or a couple of tons of dynamite."
"I'm not thinking of
ourselves," remarked Justice. "I'm wondering if the fellow aboard
that boat is setting a trap for the
professor, knowing he's on his way here to lend us a hand. He could have easily
read the
message we received. It wasn't even in code. Flaznagel has a heap of rivals and
enemies greedy to steal his secrets. He may have made some discovery or perfected a new
invention during the
past few months that will set the
whole world by the
ears."
Len Connor grunted
doubtfully. "There are no flies on the professor. He warned us of danger.
If it's anything to do with that ship he’s bound to know all about it himself,
so he's not likely to walk into any trap. I only wish the
old boy would hurry up and—"
"Bedad, and what's that?"
Dr. O'Mally's startled voice rang hollowly in the
black turret. "Faith, it sounds like someone
knocking at the door!"
Tap, tap, tap!
Flaznagel's Magic!
JUSTICE swung round from the
open window, his shoulders hunched, his tensed fingers clamped tightly about the butt of his automatic.
The baffling, blinding darkness pressed about him like walls of yielding black
rubber, relieved by not the
slightest glimmer of light. He sensed his friends' positions, and the general lay-out
of the
control-room
was clear in his memory, like a photograph, but he could see nothing,
Tap—tap—tap! Light, quick,
impatient raps, like spirit-knocking at a fake séance.
"By gosh!" breathed Len Connor in
an awed whisper. "Where does that noise come from? Not inside the turret, is it?"
"Can't be certain.
Where's Midge?" asked Justice suspiciously. "Not up to any of his
tricks, is he?"
"Gone down below for a
snack, I expect!" grinned Len. "There it is again!"
The tiny beats of sound
impinged sharply on the
captain's ears. There was something
insistent and urgent about the
tapping. Someone—or something—stood on the
empty deck outside the locked
turret, knocking against the metal
casing with some metal instrument
that might be a key,
"Bedad, mebbe ‘tis the professor!" jerked O'Mally.
"Or someone from that confounded
ghost-ship," warned Len Connor. "Watch your step, captain."
"Leave it to me,"
breathed Justice grimly. "If there's any
hanky-panky business going on, I'm ready for it." He slid his palm along the smooth, rounded wall of the
turret. Step by step he advanced, feeling his way cautiously till his fingers
met and traced the
oblong outline of the
bolted door that gave on to the
main deck.
Tap—tap—tap! He had located the sound. Only a few inches of metal separated him from the unknown
unseen knocker. Justice lifted his automatic,
using the morse code, and tapped
swiftly.
"Who's that?"
Immediately came the reply—sharp, impatient beats.
"Flaznagel. Open the door!"
The captain hesitated. He was
not convinced, and he was taking no chances. He demanded a secret code word,
known only to himself and his friends. At once it was given, and a dizzy wave
of relief surged through Justice's veins as he pocketed his gun and fumbled
with the
bolts of the
sliding door.
"O.K., chaps. It's the professor right enough," he exclaimed, his
voice vibrant with excitement and delight.
"The professor! Great
snakes, where on earth has he sprung from?" exclaimed Len Connor, in
amazement. "How did he get here? Must have dropped from the clouds."
"Bedad, and are ye sure it
is the
professor?" asked O'Mally uneasily.
"No doubt of that,"
declared Justice. "I'm taking no risks. Confound these bolts. They're jammed as tight— Ah,
that's done it!"
It was as black as pitch
inside the turret, and it became no
lighter as he manipulated the last
lever and slid open the metal door,
A gush of icy cold air fanned his checks. He stepped back a pace, eyes probing the darkness, his automatic
held on a level with his waist.
"Kindly put that
dangerous weapon away. It's pointing straight at me!" spoke the familiar,
irritable voice of Professor Flaznagel. "And your hand is none too steady.
Nerves. I suppose. You look dead-beat, captain.''
Justice uttered a gasp of
wonder. It was evident that the
professor could see him quite clearly in the darkness; yet he himself was
utterly invisible. A hand reached out, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder.
"Well, I've managed to
get here at last," grumbled the
old scientist. "Mind if I shut the
door? There's a dickens of a draught, and I think I've caught a slight chill. I
must ask the
doctor to mix me a dose of quinine."
HE spoke as calmly as if he
had just alighted from a bus in the heart of London,
instead of having appeared miraculously on a desert island in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean after an absence of six long
months.
"Faith, 'tis the old boy, sure enough," boomed O'Mally thankfully. "Begorrah, 'tis
pleased I'll be to set eyes on him again, for it's not an inch in front of my
nose I can see at the
moment.
Isn't it a light of any kind ye've brought with ye, professor?"
"A light? I think it
inadvisable to show a light at present," answered Flaznagel mysteriously.
"Dear mc. I was forgetting that you fellows are unable to see in this
darkness," he added, with a dry chuckle. "That can be soon remedied.
Just a moment,
please."
Justice and the others waited in
puzzled silence. It was evident that the blinding black fog did not
inconvenience the
professor in the
slightest degree. It had not deprived him of his powers of vision. They sensed
his presence, and could hear his swift, sure movements as he closed the turret door and
returned to the
middle of the
room,
sure-footed as a cat in his avoidance of all obstacles.
"You may be certain I
did not come
unprepared for such an emergency as this," he said calmly. "There you
are. Justice—slip those on. They may feel a trifle awkward at first, but you
will soon realise their
advantages. O'Mally—Connor!"
Something was thrust into Justice's
hand. It felt to him like a pair of motor-goggles, with unusually thick
eye-pieces, an elastic head-strap, and two vulcanite cylinders, the size of small
flashlamp batteries, that rested snugly behind each ear,
"Begob, and what have we
here?" muttered O'Mally, in a puzzled voice. "Why will we be needing
goggles to protect our eyes when there's
not a glimmer of light to be seen?"
"Put them on, and don't
talk so much," snapped the
professor impatiently. "Where's Midge?"
Justice balanced the strange gadget
on the
bridge of his nose, and clipped the
elastic band over his head. The immediate effect was so astonishing and unexpected
that a sharp cry, almost of pain, escaped his lips.
A sudden glare of light
stabbed into his brain. He closed his eyes and opened them again, wondering in what magical
manner Professor Flaznagel had conjured light from darkness.
But there was no light. Yet he could see,
just as if his gaze was directed along the bright path of a sunbeam. The
interior of the
turret swam clearly before his vision. It was a cold, pale illumination, like the reflection of a concealed light shining through
frosted glass. But it had no visible source. The mysterious ray that enabled
him to pierce the darkness seemed to
spring from his own optic nerve.
Wonderingly, Justice stared
round, glimpsing the squatting
figure of Dr. O'Mally, and Len Connor in the
act of adjusting a similar pair of clumsy-looking, big-lensed goggles.
The Q-Ray, which made the sides of the
yacht transparent, was switched off, but through the
open observation window he could see a limited expanse of leaden-grey ocean,
and a stretch of rock-strewn beach, with a black wall of darkness beyond.
Suddenly he realised the
truth. The power of vision was contained in the weird contraption that was fastened
over his eyes. The thick lenses, and vulcanite tubes attached to the head-strap, radiated an uncanny electrical force
that enabled him to see, despite the
mysterious black fog that covered earth, sea, and sky.
"By the beard of St.
Patrick!" exploded O'Mally, as he managed to get the
amazing goggles perched astride his prominent
nose. "Faith, 'tis getting lighter. The darkness is lifting! Sure, and
this infernal fog is clearing away like the
morning mists on the green hills of Connemara. The old sun will soon be shining again. Hooroosh!"
A snort of annoyance sounded
close to Justice's right ear. It was the
first time he had caught sight of Professor Flaznagel for many months. The old
scientist presented a grotesque figure. He was wearing a padded-leather flying jacket, long boots that reached to his
thighs, and a queer crash-helmet that gave him the
appearance of some strange invader
from another
planet.
He was wearing similar
goggles to those he had issued to his friends. His features were obscured, save
for his ears, the tip of his long thin
nose, and the ragged grey beard, and
his eyes were invisible behind the
thick glass optics.
"O'Mally is talking
nonsense!" he snapped. "It is getting no lighter, and is not likely
to get any lighter. The whole world is in utter darkness. It is the appliance he is
wearing that enables him to see, giving the impression that the black fog has
lifted."
“By gum, I guessed as much as
that," blurted Len Conner, steering wonderingly around "What sort of
a gadget's this you've sprung on us now, professor? Mean to say we can actually
see in the dark, without light of
any kind?"
The professor nodded.
"Infra-orange rays," he explained vaguely. "I have no time to go
into technical details at the moment, but the
secret is contained in the miniature
storage batteries and the type of
lens through which the rays are
diffused. They project a non-luminous gleam that—to use a simple word—dissolves
the
darkness, giving the
human eyes visibility up to a range of several miles."
Len Connor uttered a low
whistle of astonishment. He was beginning to realise the kind of experiments Professor
Flaznagel had been engaged with during the past six months. He had not
intended that the coming of the
Black Menace should catch him unprepared and unequipped with weapons with which
to fight the wave of darkness that
had submerged the world.
"Infra-orange rays. An
improvement on infra-red rays?" suggested Justice shrewdly. "They
have been used to take photographs in the darkness, and to enable ships to
navigate safely in the
thickest fog. You have adapted the
idea to the human eye!”
“I have gone a great deal further than that.” assured the
professor proudly. "This darkness has no terrors for me, Justice. It may
last for a long time—months, or even years—but it will not interfere with my
work. I have achieved much since I saw you last, Justice. And there is still a
great deal to be done. Total darkness is not the only horror of this mysterious
black cloud. There are other
dangers infinitely greater. But this is not the time or place to discuss them!"
The Whole World's Enemy!
THE old scientist straightened
his stooped shoulders, and made a characteristic gesture to adjust the clumsy-looking goggles on his prominent nose.
"These glasses are
extremely useful, but confoundedly uncomfortable,"
he said irritably. "We shall be able to dispense with them when we get
back to my headquarters. There we shall find plenty of light, and the sun rising as
usual every morning."
"Well, by the kink in the
tail of the Widdy Flanagan's blind
pig!" exclaimed Dr. O'Mally. "Bedad, 'tis incredible! And how did ye
get here?" he added.
"Never mind that for the moment,"
replied Flaznagel. "Where's Midge?"
He craned his long neck,
staring searchingly around the
turret and twirling an odd pair of his magic, darkness-destroying goggles that
dangled from
one lean finger.
"It is strange that I
have not yet seen or heard anything of our young friend with the red hair, the
shrill voice, and the voracious
appetite.” he remarked.
"Where the dickens has young Midge got to?" said Len
Connor. "He was here a few moments
ago, grousing like one o'clock because he'd had nothing to eat for a couple of
hours."
"Faith, and here's the pestiferous
spalpeen sound asleep!" chuckled O'Mally, indicating the figure squatting in a corner. "Wake up, ye
snub-nosed son of a two-legged talking tadpole! Sure, the professor's here as large as life,
with a grand pair of X-ray spectacles for ye to see your way in the dark!"
"Goodness gracious, what
is the
matter with the
boy?" exclaimed Flaznagel, blinking his short-sighted eyes in amazement
and concern. "He seems to be suffering with a violent attack of yellow
jaundice. And why has he shaved his head?"
"Shaved his head? Sure,
and ye must be—Great jumping jellyfish!"
O'Mally's heavy jaw sagged.
He uttered a strangled yelp of consternation as he suddenly realised that it
was not the diminutive Midge
squatting in the gloom. Peering up at him was the wrinkled, yellow countenance of Ham
Chow, the
Chinese cook, a blank, bewildered expression in his beady black eyes.
"Bedad, and how did ye
get there,
ye pigtailed atrocity?" spluttered the
doctor indignantly. "Faith, I thought it was young Midge! Where is the boy? What mischief is the
red-haired gosson up to now?''
Ham Chow gabbled
unintelligibly. He had not the
vaguest idea what all the confusion
was about.
A frown of uneasiness
deepened on Captain Justice's face as he made a quick circuit of the room, peering behind
machines and motors and under the
compact
chart-table. There was no sign of the
missing Midge. The truth suddenly dawned on him as he glimpsed the half-open hatch
leading to the
interior of the
stranded yacht.
"By James, the scamp's gone
below!" he jerked. "He must have sneaked off on his own before the professor
turned up."
“The greedy omadhaun!" growled O'Mally. " ‘Tis down to
the kitchen he’s gone to stuff
himself so full of food he won't be able to stir an inch, bedad!”
Professor Flaznagel made an
impatient gesture.
"We have no time to
waste. The sooner we get away from
here the
better," he said grimly. "I shan't feel safe until we have reached
headquarters. We shall be beyond harm there. But here—everywhere else—there is danger!"
"Danger?" echoed
Justice. "Anything to do with the
strange ship that is anchored off this island?"
"A strange ship?
Anchored off here?" The professor started violently. His lean frame tautened
like a steel spring. "I saw no ship. What kind of vessel?"
Justice described the mysterious
craft as best he could.
"A trifle bigger than the Electra—high bows—no funnels. And she was
showing lights when we first saw her—lights that were visible in this black
fog; like your orange beacon.”
The professor tugged
nervously at his shaggy beard.
"I caught a glimpse of a
man on the
bridge," added Justice. "Big fellow with fierce eyes and a square,
black beard. He jammed our television and radio when you were sending us a
message, just after the
darkness fell."
Flaznagel nodded, his fists
clenching.
"That would be
Marcus."
"Marcus?" echoed the captain.
"Who the
dickens is Marcus?"
"I don't know," was
the
blunt reply. "I can only tell you that Marcus is the name of a mysterious, dangerous,
and powerful enemy—an enemy not only to myself, but to the whole world. He has planned to take
advantage of this plague of blackness, and to establish himself as a kind of
Emperor of the
Earth while helpless humanity is plunged in terror and darkness, and unable to
protect itself!"
Justice and the others stared
incredulously at the
old scientist.
"Emperor of the Earth! The
fellow must be crackers!" exclaimed Len Connor.
"Sounds like the dream of a madman; but it is not so preposterous
when you consider all the
circumstances," said the
professor meaningly. "When I first broadcast my prophecy of impending
world darkness, this fellow Marcus was the first to foresee the possibilities
of such a situation, with all its attendant horrors and handicaps.
"He realised that one
man possessing the
power to see in the
darkness and the
means of travelling from
continent to continent and city to city would have all the treasures of the world at his mercy."
"By James, and so he
would!" said Justice, in a graver tone than Len Connor had ever
heard him use. "I am beginning to get the hang of things, professor. Danger
exists in the
fact that this fellow Marcus is trying to steal the secret of your infra-orange rays,
as contained in these
glasses?"
It was a shrewd guess. But he
was only partly correct.
"Marcus already
possesses the
secret of the
infra-orange rays," said Flaznagel bitterly. "He obtained it by
treachery—by bribing one of my most trusted assistants. But he is not
satisfied. He is after other
appliances and inventions that I have perfected within the
last six months.
"He wants to share Titanic Tower—my
headquarters here in the middle of the Atlantic—as a
base for his future operations against the
world. Continually I am receiving wireless messages from the scoundrel. I refused to have any
dealings with him, tried bribery, offering me a half-share in the wealth and power he hoped to obtain. Finally he
came down to threats.
"And that is the present state
of affairs. Marcus has declared war on me. He has sworn to seize by force all that
I possess. He is cruising somewhere
in these waters, listening in to my
wireless, intercepting my television, and trying to locate my headquarters. And
now you suggest that his ship is lying off this island, less than thirty mixes
from Titanic Tower.
If that is the
case, we are in graver danger than you can possibly imagine!"
Captain Justice drew a deep
breath. The word "danger" set his nerves tingling and the blood singing
through his veins. If there was one
man he would have liked to meet face to face at that moment,
it was the mysterious Marcus—the bombastic,
self-styled Emperor of Earth and Napoleon of Darkness.
"Yes, there's danger,
professor," he agreed, almost eagerly. "Ten to one that is Marcus'
yacht we spotted. And possibly he knows you are here. He must have read the message you
flashed to us with your orange beacon, and knew you were coming to pick us
up. Perhaps you have walked into a trap? Why else would his ship be anchored
off this island?"
Flaznagel shrugged his
shoulders.
"I have seen no ship. Where
is it?”
Justice walked to the observation
window, and stared out across the
bleak grey ocean now plainly visible through the magic glasses he was wearing.
There was no sign of any
ship. He switched on the Q-Ray, and
swept the circle of the horizon with keen, searching eyes. The sea in the vicinity of the rugged island
where the
Electra lay high and dry was as empty as the palm of his hand.
The mysterious craft had
vanished. She had disappeared as suddenly and as stealthily as she had crept in out of the world of darkness!
Vanished Without Trace!
“FAITH, 'tis a ghost-ship she
surely was,” declared Dr. O'Mally impressively. "Bedad, and she's vanished
entirely, like a banshee at the full
of the moon."
"Then there is no
possibility of a trap!" jerked Len Connor. "If that was Marcus'
yacht, and it has gone, he couldn't know that the professor is here!"
Flaznagel turned quickly, his
lean, gaunt figure vibrant with energy and alarm.
"More likely Marcus has
gone because he knows that I am here, and not at my headquarters!" he
exclaimed, grabbing Justice by the
arm. "Possibly he is on his way to Titanic Tower!
There is not a second to be lost, captain. We must get away from here at
once!"
"Glory be, we can't go
without young Midge," declared O'Mally, suddenly remembering that the red-haired youngster was no longer with them.
“Send for the boy
immediately!" snapped the
professor, handing over the
spare pair of infra-orange ray glasses. "Tell him if he's not here in one
minute, he'll be left behind."
O'Mally thrust his bald head
in the open hatch.
"Mi-i-i-idge! Midge,
ahoy!" he yelled.
If Midge was anywhere within
half a mile he could not have failed to hear O'Mally's strident hail.
But there was no response. Again and again
O'Mally shouted. Len Connor added his voice to the clamour, but the result was the same. There was no reply from the missing
youngster.
O'Mally bit his lip. It was
pitch-dark in the
interior of the
ship, and Midge was unable to see an inch in front of him.
"Bedad, belike the boy's met with an accident." he muttered huskily.
"Fallen downstairs and cracked head, or got himself trapped by a jammed
door."
In silence he and Len Conner
adjusted their
big, clumsy-looking goggles, and disappeared into the dark depths of the open hatch,
leaving Justice and the
professor to guard the
turret.
White-faced and shaken, Len
Connor and O'Mally returned to make their
report. There was no sign of the
red-haired youngster. He had utterly vanished. They had searched every inch of
space in the yacht from stem to stern, from
deck to bilge-keels.
"But it is utterly
impossible for the
boy to have vanished without trace!" declared the professor. "He must be somewhere in the ship!"
Justice was of the same opinion,
until, in company
with Len Connor and Ham Chow, who was wearing Midge's glasses, he made a
thorough and systematic inspection of every possible corner and cranny into
which the
missing youngster might have slipped.
All they discovered was that the yacht's motors
were beyond repair, her keel snapped like a carrot, and there was a hole in her side that would
have admitted a brewer's dray. But the
mystery of Midge's disappearance was more insoluble than ever. The baffled
searchers returned despondently to the
control-room
on the
main deck.
"And don't forget he
can't see," reminded Len Connor gloomily. "He isn't rigged out with a
pair of these infra-orange goggles, the same as we are. He was as blind as a mole when
he went down below!"
Justice shrugged his
shoulders. His tanned face was haggard with fatigue and anxiety as he stared
out across the
cold grey sea.
He had had no proper sleep
for many nights. The experiences of the
past few days would have sapped the
endurance of any man. But he knew that his companions were depending on him to find
some
solution to the
problem of Midge's disappearance.
Professor Flaznagel was
displaying signs of impatience and uneasiness. He was anxious to get back to
his headquarters—the colossal
Titanic Tower that reared up thousands of feet above sea-level, infinitely
higher than any other man-made
structure that had ever been built.
JUSTICE'S tired eyes swept the expanse of empty water surrounding the bleak, rugged island where the yacht was stranded like a dead whale. The little
patch of rock and sand, projecting from the bed of the ocean, had an area of no more than
a square mile. There was no sign of life; not so much as a solitary gull or a
single cormorant.
The ingenious glasses that he
was wearing had an extreme range of seven or eight miles. Beyond that limit,
visibility merged into towering walls of darkness that curved up and over the sky like the
interior of an inverted black bowl.
But for the confining darkness, the
professor’s gigantic tower would have been clearly visible, even from thirty miles away.
"We're getting all the tough breaks, captain," said Len Connor,
rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his tousled hair. "The professor
is anxious to get back, but I reckon we've got to stay here till—till—"
"Till Midge is found.
Exactly!” snapped Justice. "There is one thing we haven't done yet, and
that is to search the
island itself. There isn't much cover, but Midge may have wandered away in the darkness,
slipped down a crack in the
rocks, and broken a limb, or knocked himself senseless."
"Search the island, by all means,"
encouraged Flaznagel. “It shouldn't take you long, and the sooner this mystery is cleared up the sooner we shall
get away from
this place. I am going to try to get a message through to headquarters. The
radio is wrecked, but I may be able to rig up a makeshift set with the aid of a few storage batteries and some spare parts."
"Bedad, ye've only to
give the old boy a packet of pins, a
bundle of firewood, a foot of wire, and an old safety-razor blade, and he'd be
telephoning to Kamchatka in five minutes," declared O'Mally.
Ham Chow had vanished. Proud
of his magic glasses that enabled him to see in the dark, he had slipped down to the kitchen to
prepare some
sandwiches and hot coffee for the
castaways. He had an idea at the
back of his pigtailed cranium that the
aroma
of food might lure Midge from
wherever he happened to be.
Justice opened the sliding door in the
side of the turret and stepped
outside, with O'Mally and Len Connor close behind him. The yacht was wedged
firmly on the rocks, canted to one
side, with her deck sloping at an angle of thirty degrees.
The tidal wave had slung her
high and dry. She was fully a hundred yards from the nearest point where the sea lapped the sandy beach,
with her bows flattened like a crumpled tomato-tin, and her twin screws showing
beneath the
lifted stern.
"Poor old Electra—she's
made her last trip!" said Len Connor, a lump in his throat as he picked
his way across the
cluttered deck.
The rails were twisted and
snapped; the
lifeboats smashed to matchwood; and the
yacht's single central telescope column had gone over her side like a felled
tree. It was this piece of metal bridging the gulf between ship and land that
enabled the
three friends to descend to terra firma.
The island was even smaller
than Justice had supposed. It was roughly triangular in shape, with a base no
more than four hundred yards in length. It was as bleak and bare as a desert,
bisected with a ridge of rock like a spine, on which the fury of the tidal wave had crashed the doomed Electra.
There was no vegetation, and
no sign of life save numerous hideous, hairy-legged land-crabs that scuttled,
clicking and rattling, to their
holes as the searchers opened out in
expended order, and worked their way
gradually up from the base of the
triangular island, steadily converging as they
neared the peak.
The comrades searched diligently for signs
of the
missing youngster, but found nothing. Every moment
each of them expected to hear a
shout telling of success from one of
the others.
But no shout came. Of Midge there
was not the
slightest sign.
Uneasily, Captain Justice was
thinking of their
ambitious and unscrupulous enemy—Marcus the Mysterious!
Peril and Mystery pile
still higher and higher for Captain Justice and his comrades—and the
missing Midge!—and Next Week's splendid story by Murray Roberts is going to GRIP you as only
MODERN BOY stories can!
Part 2
Part 2
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